In the present space industry, the process of assembling space vehicles requires very precise coordination of multiple ground support vehicles and types of mobile equipment. Ground support vehicles and other equipment must be precisely coordinated to assemble large parts with a high degree of precision to prevent failure.
Currently, large numbers of ground support personnel are needed to ensure precise alignment and functional integration of all equipment used in the assembly process.
Highly skilled crane operators are required to perform intricate maneuvers to align components. This process may be slow due to the complexity of manually positioning, rotating, and lowering the space vehicle elements and the testing of each segment of vehicle.
Once a component of a space vehicle is aligned and assembled with a second component, the assembly must be tested before additional components may be aligned and assembled. The assembly process is therefore time consuming, as the align, assemble, test sequence is repeated for each space vehicle component. Furthermore, whenever a test is unsuccessful, the components must be disengaged, realigned, reassembled and retested.
If a single part is misaligned, an entire mission schedule can be delayed as the vehicle is disassembled and reassembled to correct the error.
Currently, highly skilled personnel are required to precisely align and integrate space vehicles and control ground support equipment. Because of the sheer labor intensiveness of performing these alignments, design choices are limited. Designs are limited by the need to use components that can be integrated using a specific “family” of vehicles that can be predictably aligned (e.g., specific manufacturers' or compatible manufacturers' components).
It is desirable to allow NASA projects, managers and scientists the fullest possible range of design options, and that these design options not be limited by constraints of using launch vehicles from specific families.
It is desirable to reduce the number of personnel and time that must be dedicated to overseeing the alignment and integration process.
It is desirable to automate the alignment process and to reduce the error rate of the process.